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Your blog is too long

No way Jose, I’m so freaking epic you should count yourself lucky being able to read this much of my stuff…….for free no less….

Let’s wrap it up, you lost me after the 3rd paragraph. Oh wait, that wasn’t 3 paragraphs, that was 1 paragraph 3 pages long.

I can’t even skim this; hopefully I can pick up enough keywords to at least leave an intelligent comment. I might be better off just reading the comments to see what was said and offer some of the same thoughts. Just keep that ballpoint pen away though because I’m likely to just jam it in my ear to make this pain stop.

I really want to like you, I really do; but you are requiring too much of a commitment and I don’t even know if I want to have coffee with you.

Can’t you condense some of those thoughts? I promise, I will act like it’s interesting.

Look who’s calling the kettle black Dorman, I had the suicide hotline on speed-dial reading your crap post. You have truly mastered the art of taking 3 paragraphs to say something that could have been said in 1.

But I thought there was a minimum word count………

Your blog is too short

Nope, don’t think that is possible. My buddy Mr J M Bell has this down to a science with his Start Your Novel blog. He will give you the prompt and you can run with it from there. Of course, I never have anything relevant or intelligent to say at his place, but he tolerates me hanging around.

There are others who use a limit in a creative way; check out Ruth at BullishInk, and Geoff Talbot at Seven Sentences, creative indeed.

Your blog is just write right

582 words. According to all social media statistics, this is the perfect length for a blog. Not 581; not 583, but 582.

If you can nail the word count and post on Monday morning at 7:33 EST you will automatically see a 26% jump in readership. If you duplicate this on Thursday morning but change the time to 8:02 EST you will be off the chart.

How do I know this is true? This is the internet isn’t it? Nuff said…….

It also might help if you actually have a story and not some meandering ‘oh god I am so lost‘ script that you eventually have to wrap it up with something witty so the post wasn’t a total waste; but hitting the number is much more important.

Don’t get too hung up worrying about quality. Nobody cares…………

I think you are pulling my leg

Really? Don’t you know where you are? Yes, this is the house of Dorman and mi nombre es Guillermo (that’s my name is Bill, or William….in Spanish….in case you didn’t know).

If you are skeptical, give it a try; but just remember, you have to hit all the numbers. Even being off by one word or minute can be the difference between penthouse and living in a van down by the river.

Full of something I’m afraid; probably more full of myself than anything else.

If you think reading this post was a complete waste of time, then you will have to take it up with my agent. I knew social could be fickle, but if I’m going to have to deal with a bunch of haters, then I will probably just shut off my comments….and drop you as a follower too.

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77 thoughts on “Your blog is too long”

582 words eh? Hmm. Gosh! Are you telling me my blog posts are too long? There used to be a time, years ago when I would post two paras – barely 250 words and vamoose.

I think I read somewhere that 500 is a decent average, but if Bill Dorman says it is 582 – I’ll go with that.

🙂 I love the Seven Sentences blog – thank you for referring to it. And that’s my second takeaway. Now let me go calculate what 7:33 EST is in terms of my part of the world.

But frankly, there are those 3000 + words posts that sometimes freak me out and I superscroll down to see the comments too :D. Some are worth reading fully, like the Blog Tyrant’s or Neil Patel’s tutorials – they are tutorials after all and also formatted for an easy read.

Mmm. 😀 Hugs! I hang on to all your words, Bill! I hope your week rocks!

Of course I had to use my word counter to know exactly how many words were in this post to tailor it to my story……..:).

I used to be in the 500-600 range, but for some reason my writing has been carrying me to the 800+ range. It’s really the story or message that will keep a post sticky; if it resonates with your audience, they will stick around.

I’m pretty sure I read somewhere there is an optimal number, but I haven’t paid much attention to what you are ‘supposed’ to be doing in here, so why start with that?

Hope your Monday is going well; I’m off today and headed to the golf course at the land o’ Disney.

I like to do the old cutting out of ‘and’ or ‘the’ as much as possible, as well as keeping paragraphs short. That said my latest post was really long, however it is in dot point form so I argue this makes it easier to read and cancels out the lazies.

I’m now going to try to write a post exactly 582 words long just because.
Yeah, I can say ‘just because’.

You did have a long post recently, but it was very readable. I’m sure you know I was being facetious with this.

I have a habit of using ‘that’ too many times or ending a question with ‘huh?’

I’d like to think I write like I talk; if I do that then the writing will come easy. Of course, being ‘southern’ my dialect comes through at times and it doesn’t necessarily resonate with all. I try to write without too much of an accent…..:).

Good to see you ma’am; I thought I had chased you off after your first visit. I hope all is well in your quest to become the next big novelist.

Haha thank you. Just replying to say that I am also very guilty of writing ‘huh’ at the end of sentences, but I can’t help it. It’s an awesome word.
Oh, and yeah like above I write ‘haha’ too much, but then again I have a nervous laugh in real life so why not online.
Happy Monday to you too!

Hi Bill, I should have told you that it was okay to use my name in the article. 😉

Yes, my blog posts can be quite long at times, but I want to make sure my readers understand all of the tech goodness I am sharing with them. Yesterday I tried valiantly to learn how to break my posts into multiple pages, but all I did was break my blog.

Serious. Ask Kim Castleberry.

Anyway, I figure that if you want to learn about the great tech in my articles, you will read the whole article. If you don’t want to, or it doesn’t apply to you (because I’m writing about an app and you don’t use apps, for example), no worries. Feel free just to stop by to say Hi!

I think it’s a common trait to take a post and comment on how it relates to you. This is the one forum it’s ok to talk about yourself because this is how we get to know you. That’s my style, so I’m going to defend it…………:)

The optimum comment length is 137 words……….:). I thought you’d recognize I was talking about you……actually it’s Jack/Josh………oh wait, his are the right length, he just has 8 of them going out every day………maybe that’s my next topic……..’you post too much and it’s pissing me off because I can’t keep up with them’……….

As I mentioned above to Vidya, mine have ventured into the 800+ word range lately. Hey, if we have a story to tell, we gotsta tell it, right?

I saw your shout out to Kim; hopefully she was able to assist……but then again, she’s smart like that………….

I wish I had a stash but I don’t. After I write an article, I’m generally so excited to share it with readers that I hit the “Publish” button. It doesn’t seem fair to my readers to let an article fester in draft mode.

Well, first off I wanted to say that I’ve been trying to comment on your blog sometimes, but the comment didn’t go through for a reason or another.

The length of blog posts have brought up a lot of discussions. I know that writers like me tend to write longer posts, and I know that big clients who pay someone like me to write on their blogs like rather long posts. I also know that Google tends to like 800+ articles.

However, the length of a post doesn’t make it good and a long post doesn’t have to be boring either. In the end it’s all about quality.

Sorry about the problems leaving a comment; you aren’t the first who has told me that. I have no idea what’s causing it but I do appreciate the effort and the fact you would even come back.

It makes sense that the ‘writers’ might be more lengthy and I know some sites if you are going to guest post they want at least 1,000+.

Since we all have a limited time with our efforts, if you can do a good, shorter post, it might make people a little more eager to stop by if they know they can only see so many.

Good is good and length really doesn’t matter if it’s quality work. I was being somewhat facetious however, as we’ve all stopped by places where posts tend to be longer than shorter. Just a another silly nuance to post about……:).

Bill, move you butt over here and I will feed you. I have a nice batch of home grown Thai chillies that do not only go well with my grape gelée. I can offer you a spicy stew or some pico de gallo. Your choice!
Carolyn, my dog Chica weighs 35 kilos, 17 of Paris’ dogs rolled into one and she is far gentler and softer than one of those yap-yap thingies (and not fat!). She is also my favourite model for my hand knitted designs!
I am in creative thinker’s mode – the more I appreciate your compliment, mille grazie!

Okay. Now if I was paranoid—which I am not, mind you— I would think that this post was jabbing me (in a good-natured Bill way, of course). I like the philosophy of know-your-message-then-write-until-you’re-finished. I think that it’s definitely a matter of keeping your reader with you, no matter how long or short you write.

That said, since writing short seems to be a challenge for me, I’m thinking I need to do some of that.

Oh, and I think that a blog is an entire site composed of many posts (and other things) and a blog post is what we write. But you should not pay attention to me because I am just a picky, cantankerous writer. : )

Actually, you do quite well, even without a sarcasm font, my friend. And now you have given me something to strive for: a 582-word blog post. Ha!

It’s funny, I did have a number in mind and then I wrote my post and it’s about 50 words over. My ‘no, duh’ moment came when Mr Brilliant looked at the counter below the draft and it had the number of words there……………duh, why don’t you just change to match the count………….sheesh……..

The ‘know your message and write until you’re finished’ is an excellent philosophy and I follow it as well. This post was not a jab at anyone in particular as probably 90+% of the people I follow are way over 582.

There might be an ideal number out there for Google search or something, but if there is, I don’t know it.

I just write, I don’t do a good job of doing any of the other stuff you are supposed to do to attract eyeballs. It’s probably a miracle anybody shows up at all…….:).

Thanks for the kind words; it means a lot coming from you…..the next big thing…..

Somehow my verbose nature does not allow me to write 582 words about any topic. Writers write. Short, long, SEO, whatever. If it actually matters then go for it. For fun, maybe you should write all your posts at that length and see what the numbers say.

I like the idea that it remains conversational. That’s good advice in my book.

I heard next year the Disney courses are supposed to be part of the FedEx Cup. I’ve played Disney right after they’ve had the Funai Classic and it’s neat to play a tournament ready course.

I have a friend who is a starter at Disney and we play for free. I think normal freight is about $100 or so………..yikes………

I still haven’t taken the time to find out how to write for SEO; probably not something to brag about at this point in my ‘social’ career, but it is what it is. I just write to write and communicate. It seems to resonate with some so that’s a good day for me.

Reading my words would be like listening to me talk; southeren/Fla Cracker accent and all……..:).

Wonder of Tech gave me an app to put on my Reader and when I open up anybody else’s site, it only shows 582 words. So, if you want to get my attention you better do it in 582 words or less……kind of sounds like twitter, huh?

900 is about my upper limit unless I’m just being incredibly awesome…….:).

Disney golf was fun (and hot) today. It was free so how can that be a bad gig?

Internet says…….1-3, you have a little more flexibility here………:). When I started, I didn’t even know how to embed a picture in my post. It took me about 3-4 months to figure it out. The crazy thing is, I had traffic anyway.

I have gone against the grain to some degree because all I do is write. I don’t link or backlink well, I don’t do any pro-active SEO and don’t actively seek to guest post anywhere. Not a recipe for success in here, but I probably hold my own by just writing and engaging. I think that’s the core to success anyway.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by Ms Claire Jarrett, my new tribe mate and auto DMer; so good to see you.

582 words. Great. That has to be the next goal for a blog post. No more, no less.

Although, personally I don’t think since Google shook things up a bit with recent updates that the length of your posts matters so much. It’s more about great and original content with a little bit of SEO added in for good measure.

And whose blog did I visit first after my blackout for the house move? Why yours of course Billy boy!

Who needs search engines anyway? 😉

I’m hope you had fun playing golf with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck over at Disney. We don’t have Disney over in Scotland, we have Donald Trump!

I’m honored….or is that honoured….or is it whilst? If we got the English language from you guys, how in the heck did we mangle it up so much in 200 years time?

Tower of Babel I suppose, huh?

The cool thing about Disney is, it’s a championship course on the PGA tour; they will have a tournament there in about 2 months. And what’s even cooler than that is I get to play for free. Life is good………….it’s hard to have a bad day at golf when you have that going for you.

One of these days I will spend time w/ SEO and links and back links and all the other stuff you should be doing without boogering up your content. And then I suppose I should probably think about a self-hosted site too…….yikes……..

I know; it’s one of those where you sit down w/ a glass of wine to read it and fall asleep in the chair about half-way through. Then when you wake up you feel like you’ve been drugged and it takes you an hour just to snap out of it. By then, you forgot you were even reading the thing………….

Oh crap, I’m screwed. My posts are too long and I don’t post at those times. Yikes, this must mean I’m not successful at all with my blog. Or am I! That’s the real question here.

You know I just start writing Bill and it goes wherever my little old brain and fingers take it. I guess it also depends on how much I have to say that particular day too. Maybe I’ll try keeping my posts short some time and see what happens. Interesting though I must admit.

I don’t really have a word count; however, like Adam said, if it’s starts to top 900 I might start editing. Once I get in the flow of writing, I just let it go to get it on paper (or in the computer) and then work on it from there. I certainly don’t think any of us should try to write in a box unless it’s a specific challenge like the posts I mentioned.

You know us talkers, sometimes it’s hard to harness all that greatness………..:).

You got it! I just had to unsubscribe to about 10 blogs on my Google Reader because it took about a minute just to SCROLL PAST them in the reader. Maybe with blog posts that long, they’re not really looking for general readership, search results? Who knows.

When my posts get longer than 600 words, I get the shakes. Even I don’t like my writing that much!

Blogs need to be treated like a bathroom read, huh? An even better Reader’s Digest version, huh? Some of the ‘informational’ blogs that I really don’t have an interest in are just way.too.long. Throw in a vid or two on top of that and if it’s taking me 10 minutes to make it through they better be giving something good away to entice me………:).

If it’s too long and not compelling I will drop down into skim mode; but hey, at least I paid a visit, right?

Speaking of Google Reader, it’s about time for a house cleaning for me as well.

Funny, I have read SO MANY blog/articles that will challenge your theory. I’ve seen post that say at least 1000 words or no one will read it and I’ve seen, if you go past 500 you will lose their interest and they will run. I like to keep my post between 475 and 550, more because of the fact that I am in a VERY niche industry. (Is this comment at 475 yet?) I guess the real proof would be how many comments/traffic you get.

Pssssttt; don’t tell anybody but I made this entire thing up………….I know, hard to believe, but it’s true.

Blogs do come in all shapes and sizes and depending on your niche it could dictate the length. Personally, I read so much if I can get all the info in about the time of a ‘bathroom read,’ then I’m good to go. I delete sooooo many e-mails because it is just too much. I better know you, or there needs to be something else there to get my attention; and usually length is not one of them.

That’s ok, I hold the pen in here; if your reply gets too long I’ll just cut you off…..:).

Thanks so much for dropping by, I really do appreciate it. I hope your day has gone well.

You’ve certainly got a point. If you’re writing way more than 582 words, then it has to be really good, even remarkable for me to stay until the end. Many times I’ve stopped after reading the first paragraphs, because I understood that the post was 2500+ words. It’s not that I don’t want to, but many times when I read blog posts I do it because I’m looking for an answer to something, or because I have 5 minutes before I need to do something else (or maybe I’m out walking and I’m reading it on my iPhone). And that’s the thing, we have no idea what our readers are in the middle of when they land at our blogs, so keep it short and simple and to the point, that’s what I like 🙂

I have been known to ‘print’ a post because it is so long I prefer not to read it from my computer screen. To me, blogs are like a snack, not the main course. I want to keep my audience interested and engaged. If I ramble too much, it makes it too easy to lose them.

If in the back of my mind I know I have 10 other posts I need to go see, the really long one might get moved to the back of the line and I will get back to it……if I can. Not that I might not like it, but my limited time has to be used efficiently. Otherwise, I might not be a socially awesome as I’d like to be……..:).

I do have a target range I try to stay in to keep the KISS on.

Once again, I saved you from spam; you need to be careful hanging around with that group.

Well, the statistics might be another issue, I don’t believe in it. When Ingrid used to write, it was well over 1000 words and she always managed to keep it interesting. So, if you are interesting, then it really doesn’t matter.

Ah Ms Ingrid; those were the days, weren’t they? I would like to think I modeled my ability to engage around what worked for her. She had long posts and long comments; it was good to drop by there and just let ‘er rip, huh? Too bad IRL got in the way and it wasn’t a sustainable model for her.

If it’s good enough the word count won’t matter; just keep it good, right?

You do a great job of keeping it good so I won’t pull out my word counter on you.

Your post was an interesting read and funny. I know that when I see a really long post, I’ll skim through it first to see if its really worth reading. I’ll read the first paragraph and then see the headers, then read the whole thing if I find it interesting.

Hey Melanie, thanks so much for stopping by. Always nice to see a new….and lovely face……

You are like many; we put the speed reading into effect and skim and then decide if you have the time and inclination to ‘lock’ in and read it. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of how much time you have and who else you want to see, right?

I hope your journey has been a good one and we get to bump into each other again.

Hi Bill, I still find it funny that there are SO MANY bloggers parsing this kind of data and taking it oh so seriously. Granted, I am not the one with all the knowledge in that department, far from it, but I guess that I find it silly. If you are wonderful, people will find you. If you write crazy-long blog posts, some people will save it til the weekend if you are really that good. There are certain people whose blogs I read, no matter what.

I know some who want everything dialed in ‘just right’ but make writing secondary… and then they wonder why it isn’t working for them. All I know is, if I connect with the people and just be myself, then all the other so-called ‘musts’ really become secondary.

We are wonderful, right?

How have you been; all good in your neighborhood? Good to see you, thanks for taking the time to stop by; always a pleasure to see you.

I think your writing has to have a certain flow and sometimes it can be short or long. However, if you have a self-imposed limit it’s a good exercise to train yourself to be able to get your point across in 500 words or less or whatever your limit would be.

Are you copying my style? Is that copyright infringement? It might be scary if there are two of us………

Always a pleasure sir, I hope you have been well and have a great weekend.